Category Archives: Kinetis

Pin Muxing: Using the NMI Pin as GPIO Pin

Posted on by
20

Many modern microcontroller have a cool feature: Pin Muxing. What it means is that I can ‘mux’ the pins for different purposes: such as I can use a SPI or I2C pin as GPIO (General Purpose Pin) or vice versa. In an ideal world, I would be able to ‘route’ or ‘mux’ pins freely around. In practice these ‘way switches’ are more or less limited.

In “Using the Reset Button on the Freedom Board as User Button” I muxed the FRDM-KL25Z reset pin as GPIO pin. The same approach can be used for muxing the NMI (Non-Maskable Interrupt) pin for the Freescale Kinetis devices. I’m showing it here how to do this with Processor Expert as this allows me to do this with a few mouse clicks.

NMI Pin Used as GPIO Pin

NMI Pin Used as GPIO Pin

Continue reading →

Tutorial: User Interrupts with Processor Expert

Posted on by
51

I have been asked this question several times:

“How can I define my own interrupt vector with Processor Expert?”

So I think it deserves a short tutorial, if more than one person is asking this ;-).

My user interrupt in the vector table

My user interrupt in the vector table

Continue reading →

Processor Expert (Driver Suite/Plugins/KDS) V10.4 with new Component Inspector

Posted on by
13

There has been a lot of new Freescale releases recently around FTF, and I’m trying to catch up. For me as a Processor Expert Lover, it is good news that there is now the new version 10.4 available. And it comes in different ways:

Microcontrollers Driver Suite v10.4

Microcontrollers Driver Suite v10.4

Continue reading →

The Zumo Bots at FTF 2014

Posted on by
3

I should have known it better, and I always teach my students that they should take the environment into account. And you know what? This time it was me who missed following that rule.

But from the beginning: For the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) I brought 4 different Zumo Robots to show developing with the Freedom board and Processor Expert. Clark (thanks again, Clark!) has built and brought the Sumo Dojo, and I brought the bots:

Zumo Bots at FTF

Four Zumo Bots at FTF

Continue reading →

FTF: FRDM-K64F, Kinetis Design Studio and Kinetis SDK

Posted on by
38

I’m attending the Freescale Technology Forum (FTF) in Dallas this year: As they say here: “everything is bigger in Texas”, that’s the motto of this conference ;-). The conference is packed, and I have a hard time to keep up with all the things going on. My focus is obviously everything around Eclipse and ARM microcontroller. The conference started yesterday afternoon with hands-on labs, and I was in the one were Freescale presented the new ‘Kinetis Design Studio’: a free of charge/unlimited Eclipse tool chain based on Eclipse Kepler, GCC and GDB. Freescale presented their new software library ‘Kinetis SDK’. And: There is a new Freedom board which gets handed out to the attendees: the FRDM-K64F :-).

Texas Style Glass Coverage

Texas Style Glass Coverage

Continue reading →

Starting Point for Kinetis Low Power LLS Mode

Posted on by
46

In “IoT: FreeRTOS Down to the Micro Amps” I’m using an application with FreeRTOS to get down in micro amps low power mode. Well, nearly all or my applications are using FreeRTOS because it makes the application scalable and extensible. Still, for anyone not used to an RTOS, that might be a hard start. So here we go: how to get into the Kinetis Low Power LLS Mode *without* an RTOS.

Power Measurement

Power Measurement

Continue reading →

Tutorial: Thermal Printer, Part 1: Hardware Setup with FRDM Board

Posted on by
14

One of my embedded projects is to measure the running time in a sports event (see “Sports Timing System in a Lunch Box“). The recorded time is stored in an EEPROM plus sent over USB or wireless connection to the host. It would be great if I could print out the time and ranking directly, so if there is no PC, the system can be small and tiny. So here is my next project and tutorial: Printing with the Freedom board!

Hello World on the Printer with FRDM-KL25Z

Hello World on the Printer with FRDM-KL25Z

Continue reading →

Generating Static FreeRTOS Source Code

Posted on by
Reply

Using Processor Expert is an awesome tool: it generates source code for me, and I can can ‘dynamically’ tune my projects to my needs. Still, sometimes it is better or desirable to have a ‘normal’ or ‘static’ project. This is very well possible with Processor Expert (see “Sneaking from Processor Expert” or “Disable my Code Generation“): I can generate the code one time, and then use it without Processor Expert.

To make this even easier, I have added an option to the FreeRTOS Processor Expert component to generate ‘static’ code I can copy-paste to projects and tool chains which are either not supported by Processor Expert, or just for ‘static’ projects.

FreeRTOS Custom Port Settings

FreeRTOS Custom Port Settings

Continue reading →

First Steps with the Freescale TWR-K64F120M

Posted on by
20

Naturally, I have several project ideas lingering around. No time to make them all (for now). One of it is interfacing the Raspberry Pi camera with a microcontroller. To store the images, I need plenty of RAM on the device, and so far the Kinetis microcontroller did not have that. Finally, Freescale announced the K64F120 a few months back, and my ordered TWR-K64F120M board arrived on my desk, waiting to be used: Finally I get an ARM Cortex-M4F with 1 MByte of FLASH and 256 KByte of RAM :-).

TWR-K64F120M Box

TWR-K64F120M Box

Continue reading →

FreeRTOS V8.0.0 Final Release available as Processor Expert Component

Posted on by
23

The final FreeRTOS V8.0.0 has been released last week: time to update the Processor Expert component for it, and this time it is really a major release 🙂 : from V7.5.0 to V8.0.0:

FreeRTOS V8.0.0 Processor Expert Component

FreeRTOS V8.0.0 Processor Expert Component

FreeRTOS V8.0.0 comes with many small changes, especially it now includes many of the extra casts I have contributed to avoid compiler warnings. And additionally it has a brand new feature: Event Groups.

Continue reading →